Give Back the Awards
If the data disproves the Merc and the activists, what will they do (“Report Set to Clear SJPD,” The Fly, March 10)? Damn the report, ignore the data. Probably. But let’s hope the City Council and mayor don’t follow. Let’s hope they have the integrity to say to the cops that we have wrongly condemned you. Let’s hope they ask the Merc to give back its awards for writing stories that wrong.
B. Fischer, SanJoseInside.com
Fooled Again
Jesse Lussenhop does it again. Her piece on kid layoffs was brilliant (“Moms Tell Tots: ‘You’re Fired!'” MetroNews, April 1, 2010). I happen to have a 24-year-old daughter living at home whom I’ve put to work for me. This in lieu of sending her off to work in an iron mine in northern Minnesota, her only other option at this point. I pay her nothing (food and shelter), but it’s better than laying her off. She makes videos for my website, Blundering Gardener.com. I am a garden writer. We are investing in her future, such as it is.
Bonnie Blodgett, Saint Paul, Minn.
Lunch Money
California recently passed a budget that borrows and takes approximately $5 billion in city, county, transit, redevelopment and special district funds this year. This is the equivalent of the school bully who takes your kid’s lunch money.
The League of California Cities is sponsoring an initiative to outlaw the state’s raiding of city and county budgets to make up for its shortfall. Be sure to sign the petition to get his on the November ballot. And vote yes in November.
We need to take back our government at all levels.
John Michael O’Connor, San Jose
Republican Think
Have you heard the political radio ads that Meg Whitman has been airing on the radio? Meg, as you may not know, is running for the Republican nomination for governor of California, and she has a solution to California’s problems. Is the problem about jobs (after all, our unemployment rate is higher than the 10 percent nationwide average)? No. Certainly it is about health care, which is on everybody’s mind? Nope. Perhaps it is about schools or libraries or closing parks? Nah. The problem is single mothers with a couple of children who are on welfare. Meg’s solution is to limit the time that they can be on welfare from five to two years. There you have it folks, the Republican level of consciousness.
Harvey Dosik, Santa Cruz
Beware the Rich
Allende brought about his peaceful government in Chile by ballot, not bullet. But, you see, both Marx and Lenin taught that you’ll never get the rich to give up their riches, therefore you cannot just pass laws to get them to do it, because they won’t stand for it. But the rich will nearly always fight and die for their riches. That’s why they fight their wars and send their own sons to die for them!
They allow the socialists to merely pass laws and vote their riches out of existence! They will use their power and wealth to buy the military and pay them to defend them. This is why so many fascist takeovers happen.
Ted Rudow III, Menlo Park
